Reflector app goes live, brings iOS screen mirroring to your Mac

Ever wanted to use AirPlay mirroring to show the screen of your iPad 2 or iPhone 4/4S on your Mac? Just released, Reflection (now renamed Reflector, $14.99 for a single license, $39.99 for a 5 pack) offers a well-featured mirroring receiver for OS X, ideal for education and demos -- and a great way to eliminate the Frankencable for iPad video capture.

I've been beta-testing Reflection for several weeks. I watched as David Stanfill (developer of AirParrot, which I introduced a few weeks ago on TUAW) refined and stabilized this app. With Reflection, you can project app demos to your Mac in real time. This is a great feature for any developer or teacher, or even for business folk who would like to bring along their presentations on their phone.

I first wrote about Reflection a few weeks back on TUAW, and it received quite the warm welcome -- many of our readers asked when it would debut, and how they could purchase a copy. At that point, the app was just in its initial alpha release. It barely supported multiple resolutions and provided few options.

What you get today is full mirroring, including audio, with orientation updates and many video optimization features as well as pseudo-frames that make the video on your desktop look as if it's running on an iPhone or iPad -- just as it would with the Xcode iOS simulator. It's not quite at a bulletproof release, but for day-to-day use for those of you who need these features now and are willing to deal with the occasional crash, it's a great solution as-is.

AirParrot ($9.99 for a single license, $29.99 for a 5 pack), the app that mirrors your OS X desktop to Apple TV, has also undergone major changes since I first wrote it up. In the latest release (approximately version 1.2.1), you can now use your Apple TV as an separate external monitor, not just for mirroring desktops. AirParrot also now supports audio mirroring and perceptual smoothing. These are great feature bumps to an already useful app.